


Reap

by pettiot



Series: Dragon Age II Kinkmeme [14]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Consent Issues, Horror, M/M, Religious Themes, Tranquility, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-02
Updated: 2012-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:54:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22526650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettiot/pseuds/pettiot
Summary: Anders is made Tranquil.  Except not.
Relationships: Anders/Cullen
Series: Dragon Age II Kinkmeme [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619464
Kudos: 9





	Reap

Anders stood in the courtyard and waited for somebody to come.

A breeze lifted his hair, tickling his cheek.

He scratched slowly.

He had waited he did not know how long, without caring, among the marble squares. There was nowhere else. All those places which apparently he had been. Where people were behaving still, tending swords, singing drunken songs, dimming lanterns, kissing, looking out of open windows for something not yet discovered, hiding in shadows waiting for marks, eating poor food and feeling a thirst. But now that he stood in the courtyard and waited, none of those acts were what he would call relevant, if they had ever been.

I could wait here for very much longer, Anders said.

'That would not be wise.'

This was Knight-Captain Cullen, who had taken Anders' notes on sela petrae and drakestone as irrefutable proof. They were, in the hands of the Champion. Anders implicated himself publically after the branding. He saw no need to lie.

Perhaps not, Anders said.

Cullen's brow pinched, an unforgiving expression.

'You should not stand here past nightfall. There are schedules to be kept.'

It is no bother, Anders said.

'Come with me.' Cullen led him some way, then pushed him towards the mages' quarters, 'Go inside, get something to eat before the kitchen closes, and go to sleep.'

The next morning the young mages jeered and mocked when they found him asleep, head on his arms on the table beside his empty bowl. One poured a jug of juice down the back of Anders' robe, slow and steadily.

That was unnecessary, Anders said.

'Live with it,' he was told. 'Now piss off, dossie. You're at our table.'

Anders stood in the courtyard and waited, his back itching in the sun.

A little elvhen girl tugged his robe. Dark skin and amber eyes, she wore a short silk tunic and glittering ruby studs in her lobes, but she was dirty. They are mages too, Anders told her, their cruelty can only come from fear, so I must avoid both fear and cruelty. The girl shrieked and toddled away, swaddling slipping down rounded thighs. She grinned back at him in delight, and poked her tongue out when he did not give chase.

But because this had no meaning, he could think of no reason not to forgive the mages.

His back was afire, the sharp smell of juice turning acidic in the heat. He turned to find the bathing room.

'What are you doing in here, filth?'

This was Knight-Commander Meredith, pausing as she passed him in the great hall, her retinue looking through him.

'Did I not tell you to stand?' She was stern, her finger pointing outside. 'Stand where all the mages can see you, and know your petty spirit for well and truly crushed?'

Anders did not cower or howl or beg, weeping, as he remembered doing when she brought him to the brand. He could see no reason for his submission. Unless she drew her sword, Knight-Commander Meredith was no further threat.

Though he was unsure.

I am taller than you, Anders said.

Because this was certain.

Rage licked her features. 'Get back outside.'

I wish to bathe, Anders said, because I have been made dirty.

Her gauntlet shredded his cheek when she struck, eyes wide and wild.

'Then get your filthy clothes off, apostate, and get back out there. Pray for rain if you wish to bathe.'

Her Tranquil met Anders' eyes and said nothing.

Meredith walked away in the company of echoes. Her sword had not been drawn, but the threat of a blade was bare. Her voice low, measured, an animal growl.

Anders disrobed and went back outside, smelling the oil-dark Gallows waterway, to stand in the courtyard and wait for someone to come.

His shoulders stung with sunburn, then his chest. Templars clicked and rattled around the courtyard, shifts changing with the regularity of Antivan clockwork, ticking prim and slow. The eyes of visitors saw him as little as the walls.

I will pray for rain, Anders said.

He went to his knees.

The templars nearest to him lurched forward, then stopped. A chuckle resounded.

Maker, Anders said, I pray for rain.

But the reasons why had left him, and he stayed on his knees.

A dark elf hesitated some distance away, then set his shoulders and approached. He wore a fine linen shirt as white as his hair, tooled leather trousers, and a red ribbon around his wrist.

If Meredith wishes me to be seen and known, Anders said, this is not the place.

This was Fenris.

I did not expect you to ever speak to me, Anders said. I saw your daughter this morning. She came with Marian, but Marian did not stop.

Fenris flinched, hollows under his eyes.

'How is it you are still so full of words, even with what they have done to you?'

I have not changed, Anders said.

'Yes,' Fenris said, and swallowed loudly.

He shook out a light, pale cloak to slip around Anders' shoulders. Fenris buttoned and belted it. His hands were cool and dry, brushing Anders' flaming skin with a feel like paper, soothing and familiar.

'Stand,' Fenris said.

Anders stood. He was unsteady, his legs cramped.

'This is cruel, to flaunt you like this. Even Sebastian was trying yesterday, but the Chantry does not hear him when he speaks your name, and Meredith.' Fenris' lip curled. 'Meredith.'

She is no bother, Anders said.

Because she was not there.

Fenris looked around, narrow eyed. He looked at the distant templars, who looked at him also.

'If you wish me to end this for you, tell me.'

Anders did not protest.

Anders said, Thank you for the cloak, I was uncomfortable naked.

Fenris left abruptly, hunching as he went, soles of his feet pale despite the dust.

The wind did not reach into the Gallows, but above the sky streaked with racing clouds. When the sun set, it was into a morass hidden by the Gallows walls. Anders waited for someone to come. He waited for too long he knew, without caring.

Cullen approached, walking one last round. He tutted at Anders' presence.

'You need a bath. What happened to your Circle robes?'

Meredith, Anders thought.

Mages, Anders said.

Cullen's skin flushed in the lantern light, ruddy and unhealthy. He rubbed his hand through his hair. The sunbaked scalp crackled like lightning.

'Give me names.'

It does not matter, Anders said, it was not their fault, I was asleep at their table.

'You won't be so forgiving when this keeps happening to you.'

I have no choice, Anders said.

'You don't have to do what they say! You're Tranquil, not a toy! We-- I am here to protect you as well as Kirkwall. This is a time of peace for you, Anders. Of healing. Claim it! And tell me their names.'

Anders wanted to bathe. He turned and walked to the bathing room.

Cullen followed him, creaking and groaning. He unlocked the door when Anders failed to open it. Inside, Cullen took off his gauntlets and placed them on one of many armour stands.

'You first.' Cullen tugged at his breastplate tiredly.

Anders moved between the rows, aimless.

Bathing took place daily on a schedule. The room was empty but for them, the long troughs of water cold and full of a day's worth of templar sweat and scum, buckets and ladles and spongestone scattered with the soap. The mages always bathed first, human women then human men, then the elvhen together, then the templars.

Anders looked into the murky water and did not move.

Cullen sighed. He fetched a bucket, soft soap, and washed a cloth already damp. It smelled of mould.

'Take the cloak off and step into the bath.'

Anders stood, the wooden surface greasy beneath his feet, cold grey water lapping at his ankles. Cullen poured water over Anders' head. The cold pebbled his skin painfully.

'I know better, but if I did not, I would think you do this out of sheer obstinacy. Surely you could wash yourself.'

Yes, Anders said.

'So will you take up this soap?' Cullen lathered the lye into the used cloth, and held it out. 'And tend to yourself? Or must I do this for you too?'

I would prefer not to touch that cloth, Anders said.

'Obstinacy,' Cullen said, on a breath almost a laugh. 'So tonight I am to be your servant, serah. No matter. After the branding, it is always a shock, but in time you will remember how to care for yourself. All the Tranquil do.'

His eyes beseeched Anders for some response.

Very well, Anders said.

Cullen started with Anders' left hand, rubbing briskly, up along his arm, under his arm, across shoulders and chest, then down his right arm. Rinse. He moved to Anders' back, scrubbed hard and rinsed twice. The cloth was rough and the lye exacerbated the sunburn immensely, until all his skin was aflame and he felt feverish, and the water's cold so distant it did not matter. The rubbing continued until the briskness and roughness became customary. Instead Anders felt the cloth chafing his nipples on each pass, catching on old scars and lost piercings. The roughness soothed the itching of his back, which had been intense and discomforting. The contact itself was an equally intense relief.

Cullen paused when he reached Anders' hips. He looked away, blushing.

'What is that for?'

Sex and urination, Anders said.

Cullen's voice was rough. 'Do you need to relieve yourself?'

I have had neither food nor water today, Anders said.

Cullen set his jaw and went to one knee. He scrubbed Anders' feet, then his ankles, to his knees. The barest brush of cloth between Anders' thighs sent blood coursing back to his flagging erection.

'Maker.' Cullen dropped the soap and averted his eyes.

Without touch, the sensation subsided. Cullen rubbed again, hesitant, but each approach to Anders' thighs or hips sent blood coursing back on old paths.

'Oh,' Anders said.

Cullen's embarrassment turned to an abstract interest. He trailed the cloth away, over Ander's knees or feet, then pushed it higher again, between Anders' thighs, to watch the respective fall and rise of his cock.

'Ah,' Anders said.

The cloth fell by the soap. Cullen moved his hands in circles on Anders' buttocks, kneading. His breath was fast as Anders'.

'That feels good,' Cullen whispered, watching.

Cullen pulled himself away abruptly, flush spreading from cheeks to shoulders, livid across his bare, pale chest. His breeches were unbleached and wet from his efforts, clinging pinkly to his erection.

He washed Anders' face and hair carefully, shielding his eyes from the rinse. His fingers hesitated along Anders' jaw, too hot for the water they had just been in. He helped him out of the tub.

The flood of sensation subsided.

It is no bother, Anders said.

He shivered.

Cullen's breath caught in his throat. His lips touched Anders' cheek. One palm on Anders' belly, the other hand on his shoulder, he bent Anders over the side of the tub.

'Hold yourself there. Brace. Please. Bend your knees.'

His hands skated across all the places which warmed Anders, touch firm in the way Cullen's voice was not, across balls and thighs and nipples, his lower back, the crease of his backside. 'Oh,' Anders moaned, 'oh, oh, oh.' Cullen wet his fingers in Anders' mouth, then his own, and put the spittle on his cock and entered in one blind, off centre thrust. Anders' cock jerked and Anders' throat loosed.

'Please be quiet. Not so loud, oh, please, Andraste, Andraste. Not so loud.'

The slap of flesh on flesh was loud enough. Anders saw no need to smother what came so easily to his lips. Cullen finished in a few thrusts with a sob and a prayer, his head touching between Anders' shoulder blades.

'Turn around.'

Cullen still wore his breeches, wet and tangled around his ankles. He checked his cock, then wiped between Anders' thighs harshly, even that touch lifting desire again into Anders' loins. Cullen threw the filthy cloth into the tub.

'Maker forgive,' Cullen cried angrily, voice echoing. 'What have you made me do?'

Anders avoided his eyes. This was like Meredith. He could see the unsheathed threat, the violent uncertainty.

Cullen kicked out of his wet breeches, naked and angry. His body looked powerful with his shoulders drawn back, prick still flush, thick.

He fought for steadiness. 'Do you want me to shave you? A lot of the Tranquil, the human men. They let the beards grow because they have a fear of blades near their throats. But if you wish to shave, I will shave you. I vow you need never fear a blade in my hand.'

Anders did not believe him.

It is no bother, Anders said.

'I--' The anger faltered, a strange fear surfacing. 'I've lost your hair tie. I'm sorry--'

It is still no bother, Anders said.

A silence, wet and chill.

Thank you, Anders said.

Cullen's face contorted. 'Get a robe from the mages' racks, over there. Then get out. Get out of my sight!'

Anders slowed when he reached the great hall, where he could hear the sound of the rain, beating gently at the barred doors.

'What are you doing here?'

Anders turned, already resigned. But Thrask's eyes softened.

'Do as you will, Tranquil,' the templar said gently, and left him.

Anders dozed off on the steps, listening to the rain.

The next day passed without consequence. He ate and drank in the hall with the others, with the Tranquil, as mages and templars watched him with no good intent. The day after, three young mages stopped him before he could find his designated place in the courtyard, and locked him into a storage closet. After midnight they took him to the roof garden, avoiding the templar presence with the skill of apprentices.

'Go on,' said the one who had poured juice down Anders' back, slow and dripping. 'Jump.'

Anders looked down into the courtyard and found the place where he stood in the day. Everything was still slick with rain, shining, moon fractured across the stone. The air was fresh, alive.

'Jump. Off.'

He shivered, wind belling his robe, hair caught in his watering eyes.

'Do we really have to push you?'

That would be murder, Anders said, not mercy.

'Who would know, dossie? Eh? You wanted to do worse. Who would care?'

I would, Anders said.

They wrestled him off the parapet and pushed him to the dirt. The cruel one kicked him in the balls, then coursed lightning through him, harsh and lashing. Anders cried out. His collar was grabbed, and he was dragged to sitting and shaken.

'You failed,' the young mage shouted. 'You and your stupid rebellion, you failed, your stupid manifesto we've been reading and believing in, and now what? Now we're stuck here now looking at your stupid face! You could have freed us! You failed!'

You could have freed yourself, Anders said.

The mage's fists shook. 'I want to kill you.'

I was so alone, Anders said.

'You're not alone now.'

The crushing prison held him to the floor, wracked with pain. Waves of force battered him. The mages urged each other on with the air thickening with violence, the stench driving away the clean smell of rain. They bent him over the parapet, angled over the courtyard with his vision swimming, pretending to drop him, to lose their grip, while his blood joined the rain.

The next evening, the herbalists found him curled on the compost heap, and a templar carried him to the healers.

'Who raped you?' the healer asked after the bruises and broken bones were done. She was impassive and unsurprised.

Meredith, Anders thought.

No one, Anders said.

He was escorted to the Tranquil quarters.

'You should be safe here,' the templar said gruffly, and locked the door.

There were some fifty Tranquil for five beds, each occupied with three to four Tranquil with no clear pattern to gender, race or relative health. There were no small trunks of belongings, no nook for jug and bowl or chamberpot, no chamberpot. The rest of the small room was filled with the standing. Eyes turned Anders' way, recognition in some, disinterest in all. He looked up, to where rain gusted in through a barred opening running along the width of the room. He looked down, to where the filth-slicked camber of the floor trickled towards an overloaded gully carved against one wall, for sluicing.

The Tranquil avoided that side of the room.

The door was cold at his back.

Anders picked his way slowly to find a space with less wind, until he reached the wall. He stood equidistant between a man with a large grey beard and a girl whose head lolled on her neck as she slept standing.

'Meredith,' Anders said, for no reason he could ascertain.

A frisson moved through those who were awake, eyes flicking to him.

Anders slept against the wall. Eventually the girl propped herself against him to spare herself the waking jerks as she started to fall. She was warm.

The door opened at dawn. Anders' arms fell away from the girl. They separated in the queues for the baths.

The water was still clean. Anders found a place in the corner, no bath but only the bucket and sluice, soap and a cloth. He kept his breeches on, no more unusual than full nudity. The three mages moved to stand next to him, naked.

'You have some gall, standing here like you're human.'

'Corpse gall.'

'We should have let you fall.'

The senior enchanters had private baths. The templars kept away from mage bathing hours. Only the mob and the mill circled around him now, male and threatening.

'Where are you going?' A hand slapped against his chest, stopping him. 'Don't you like it here? Surrounded by friends. Mages. Or aren't we good enough for you, hero? Martyr? Tell us how good it was being free, again. Tell us everything. We've never known. Never would have thought, if you hadn't put words in our heads.'

He covered his face, but they still struck his stomach and ribs, following him to the floor. It stopped sooner than he expected. He looked up through a forest of legs.

'Fucking dossies,' the cruel voice yelled. 'What are you getting in the way for? Move!' Flesh struck flesh, then the sound of a bucket thrown, smashing, the cluster around Anders rippling. A flickering threat of winter's grasp, and a verbal altercation as the other mages finally interceded.

'Get that bastard all you like, but alone! If all the Tranquil start showing up bloody, the templars will step in. You really want to be a Tranquil that much?'

'What else have we got?' someone cried. 'Death? Him?'

A man with a black beard and a dull, old brand knelt by Anders' side. After a moment, he took Anders' hand but held it limply.

The healer is coming, he said.

I used to be the healer, Anders said.

I know, said the Tranquil. I remember.

Those memories discomfort me, Anders said.

Do not fear them, said the Tranquil. You cannot be hurt more than you already are.

In the healer's room she checked him dispassionately. There was a mirror in her room. When she left him to dress, Anders went to the mirror instead.

His hair was wet, plastered to his forehead. An almost beard prickled aggressively, a shade shy of red. He pushed his hair away from the brand and looked at it.

His was a face that did not belong particularly anywhere. He stood unquestioned in the courtyard as the sun rose, lingered, set, warmth and its absence perceivable but not significant enough to cause concern.

It was night when Meredith came outside to look at him for a long, silent time.

'You still think you can rebel, even against the turning of the clock, the rigour of my establishment. Why does it even matter to you, foreign filth, if you continue to cause us these petty irritations? This could have been your time to repent, to embrace the blessing of Tranquility I have given you. Instead you take our best intentions and pervert them!'

Anders thought about praying for more than rain.

'One day you will thank me for my mercy.'

Anders thought he would not.

'Take him to the yard and flog him. The fool.'

The templar training yard was on the other side of the dining hall. Mages and templars watched in silence as Anders was escorted through. A templar crossed Anders' wrists and held them against a post, traditionally used for templar recruits, while another bound him tightly. They flogged him until he fell, arms alternating, while a group of five young templars practised their archery on the other side of the yard, and the dining hall occupants listened to him screaming.

'Get off your knees, mage. Get up. Take it like a man.'

The other templar was silent, his eyes averted, the shadowed slit facing away.

I cannot rise, Anders said.

'What do you think you're going to do down there? Kiss my boots?'

Maker, Anders said, I pray for rain.

'Kiss my boots.'

Maker, Anders said, I pray for storms.

A fist connected with his temple.

This was First Enchanter Orsino, holding his hands as he screamed, lashes doused with salted water.

After, robed anew, Anders walked unsteadily with Orsino through the rooftop gardens where he had been beaten and threatened with death. The sky roiled overhead, cloud rent with yellow sheet lightning, pale as oil on sand.

'What you would have done cannot be forgiven. You would have put us all at threat. But what Meredith does to you now.' Orsino shook his head. 'I want to protect you, Anders. You cannot protect yourself. You do not even have the presence to know how what you do now aggravates her so. It is not deliberate, I know, the Tranquil cannot be blamed. But she wants to blame you. Where you cannot act for your own safety, promise me you will abide by my dictates. I can protect you if you follow my command.'

Anders looked at the summer storm and thought about angry mages, and the legs of the Tranquil, and a girl warm in his arms as they stood with their hems in old filth and rain.

I have already failed you, Anders said.

Orsino could not reach to look Anders in the eye, but tried, his brow furrowed.

'You were so powerful,' Orsino said hesitantly. 'I felt it when we severed you, such willpower I could not find the chink, the weak place to cut where mortality and Fade connect. Weak, no; your connection was thick as a sword. But there was a fracture from the spirit, and it was there I could drive the wedge home, there I severed you. We purged you after, Meredith and I, scoured you, and the spirit -- the demon. It did not remain, I would swear it.'

Anders staggered slightly, wind ripping at his robe.

'Promise me, Anders. No one wants you dead.'

I promise, Anders said, I will not fail you again.

Orsino said nothing as blood blossomed through Anders' robe in stripes, sudden and overwhelming.

In the Tranquil quarters, at the request of his companions Anders disrobed. The Tranquil tore at sleeves, shifts and chemises for bandages, padding his back with stolen poultices.

Do not leave us, the girl said.

Anders followed them the next day.

The Tranquil worked in the apothecary with herbs or poisons, the roof garden and with runes. Anders cut himself on mishandled flasks, was found standing on the parapet on the roof, and did not seem to have the focus necessary for runes.

'Are you literate?' a senior enchanter asked him, frustrated. She was grey haired, with a tremor in her hands, eyes near blind with cataract. Her skin had never seen sun.

Yes, Anders said.

'Not so many literate these days. As if time turns backwards. Go to the library and ask the archivist if you might make copies of the older scrolls. We can never keep up with the deterioration. The ravages of age,' she smiled at someone else.

The archivist was satisfied with his letters and locked Anders into the archives with a book, ink, quills and parchment. Light streamed in through a high window, with shutters usually closed to preserve the leather. The air was cool and clear of dust, glyphs of grounding dotted about the floor.

'Knock when you're done, or when the light falls too low.'

Anders looked at the book.

Anders touched the parchment and thought of Fenris' palms.

The quill felt strange to hold, old familiar cramp aching in his hand almost immediately.

I have been Tranquil for seven days, he wrote.

He folded the page and placed it inside his robes, then scribed until the sun sank.

In the Tranquil quarters, Anders took out of his piece of paper and read it again.

I have been Tranquil for seven days.

In the archives the day after, he added, I have been beaten and hurt.

He wrote, those who struck me are not blameless but I do not hate them.

He wrote, only one.

He said, 'Marian never came.'

It was easier to write, Meredith.

Something flickered at the corner of his vision, too quick or too far for him to reach, to even want to try.

He wrote, Maker help her.


End file.
